ntm wrote at July 13, 2018 at 6:55 PM
(edited at July 13, 2018 at 6:56 PM)

I don't think ergdj5 is explaining it. Ziq had created many sockpuppet accounts to populate Raddle in its early days to create the illusion that it was more active and more of a community than it was at the time, which was seen by many as a betrayal of trust, and Ziq saw as necessary to bootstrap a social media platform. I can see both sides, but mostly see it as a bit of failure of infrastructure, as other sites such as lobste.rs have an "invite tree" as a safeguard against sock puppetry, and to be honest, this whole site kind of started with controversy as it was created as a result of leftist infighting (when /r/leftwithsharpedge was banned from reddit), which I am almost able to look past because it's important that we're not on websites milk their users for ad revenue/cooperate with law enforcement/use proprietary software.

This article seems to focus on the way mathematics is taught to students, not how it's studied (as a field). It focuses on the "one right answer" approach, the pass-fail human calculator mentality that comes from standardized testing, which is the only metric by which schools get funding.

Math is useful for modeling things precisely, and making predictions from those models. It has no way of providing the answer to whether these models are accurate, whether the assumptions used are realistic or even useful.

Mostly private rocketchat/mattermost instances. Lobste.rs is open-source, but the main instance (for tech news) is invite-only. I think the fact that uses tags and not sub-forum, makes it better because it doesn't consist of fractured communities. And because the user-invite tree is transparent, it's harder to pad with sock-puppets.

I've been doing comparative research into forum software, and the best I've seen is https://www.talkyard.io/. It doesn't aim to be a vote-driven bulletin board, more for general discussions, with either threaded tree-style comments or chat room discussion. We can set up a free forum until October, and then it's reasonably-priced after that, and I would gladly foot the bill if we were to make a community there.

The best improvement I've seen on the vote-driven social news / forum is from https://lobste.rs, which replaces sub-forums with tags. I think tags allow for more overlap between communities and more cross-talk, but unfortunately lobste.rs is invite-only and aimed at techies.

There is no end. Actions reverberate and will always have consequences, even if you're not around to observe them. Anyone who tells themself that "the end justifies the means" presupposes omniscience, and that's dangerous.

Injecting yourself with something was pretty common during the early age of vaccine hysteria to prove the safety of something (See Jonas Salk). This guy seems like he knew what he was doing, but he is aware that he's inspiring the theatrics of wreckless firms that don't know what they are doing and are just doing it for the money.

I see this often used within libertarian/capitalist circles to bash Elon Musk, but I also get the feel that it's just a proxy for the liberal purported environmentalism that he appeals to.

Anti-environment libertarians attack Elon Musk for not being a Howard Roark, while turning a blind eye to subsidies (either direct or legislative via lobbying) and government benefits that other billionaires get (probably because they have a steady diet of Koch propaganda).

I have some sympathies with what the author is trying to communicate, but when they use language such as "quantum changes" it can lead to many challenges when it comes to physicists trying to communicate quantum mechanics to a general audience. Describing it as "quantum" intends not to describe something accurately, but to pull in the weight of another frontier of science unnecessarily, ("quantum" becomes a meaningless buzzphrase).

I suspect a lot of this comes from the fact that being vegetarian/vegan is an exercise of our privilege, especially within a culture where we have meat production heavily subsidized so vegan options are more expensive. Having the surplus time/wealth to make such a lifestyle choice is seen as a luxury.

RT is real quality journalism, taking claims of the alt-right at face value.

In the RT article:

A 30-year-old man protesting the event was arrested after reportedly punching and choking a partygoer during a brawl outside, according to the New York Daily News. The 56-year-old victim went into cardiac arrest and was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.

In the NY Daily news:

The 911 caller said initially that the 56-year-old was in cardiac arrest after the fight, according to fire officials. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition, officials noted.